Striking the balance: Quality and innovation in Belgian digital banking
Adapting to global trends while maintaining excellence in customer experience
Brussels, 9 January 2025
The landscape of digital banking is evolving, with a growing emphasis on hyper-personalisation, streamlined experiences, and simplicity in service design, focusing on service quality rather than quantity. AI is playing a key role in enhancing customer excellence and operational efficiencies by automating tasks such as fraud detection and optimising digital channels and touchpoints based on customer behaviours. This leads to faster decision-making, improved efficiency, and higher customer satisfaction.
The sixth edition of the Digital Banking Maturity report, the world’s largest digital banking survey, included 349 banks from 44 countries across six continents. Retail banks' digital channels, such as mobile apps, public websites, and internet banking, were assessed by analysing 1,005 functionalities over an end-to-end customer journey to identify leading global trends and best practices, as well as local gaps.
Press release downloads:
The digital evolution of Belgian banks
Belgian banks have historically been leading the digitalisation of distribution channels, though today they are lagging behind global competitors. In line with customer needs and speed of adoption, Belgian banks are prioritising the quality of customer experience in digital channels, rather than maximally pushing all interactions to digital channels. Compared to other global banks, customer interactions are below average in four out of the six key customer journey steps that were analysed.
AI is entering the Belgian banking landscape, most notably through the emergence of AI-powered chatbots aimed at enhancing customer engagement. At this point in time, their adoption remains limited. On the contrary, personalised banners and pop-up windows aimed at educating and warning clients, as well as cross-selling relevant products and services, are being used more and more effectively by banks and clients.
“AI is not only transforming customer-facing tools but is also revolutionising internal banking operations. By automating tasks like data entry, document verification, and compliance checks, AI accelerates processes and reduces errors, allowing banks to make faster decisions, such as instant loan approvals.”
Cédric Deleuze, Deloitte Digital Financial Services, Industry Leader at Deloitte Belgium
Unlocking potential and elevating Belgian banks in the digital era
Belgian banks face challenges in reaching global leadership in their apps and other channels such as public websites and internet banking. One example is the lack of a robust global ecosystem; leading banks like Revolut and N26 offer cross-border banking and instant currency exchanges, features that resonate with international users. Additionally, personalisation is an area where leading international banks leverage advanced AI to provide tailored financial advice and predictive budgeting tools, areas where Belgian banks can expand.
“We notice that leading banks in our research are fully embracing customer centricity across all aspects of customer journeys. They are dedicated to providing a seamless experience, utilising early investments in advanced technology platforms to offer hyper-personalised services. Additionally, they are strategically enhancing functionalities to strengthen customer relationships and boost retention rates.“ says Kasper Peters, Financial Services Industry Leader at Deloitte Belgium.
Overall, in the current economic context, a well-defined and robust omnichannel strategy is crucial. It helps identify the right moments, channels, customer touchpoints, and messages based on customer needs and expectations, as well as the right products and services the banks want to promote. This strategy should also consider underlying IT and cost constraints to balance customer satisfaction with operational efficiencies. For Belgian banks, the next steps would be to invest in journeys around key areas such as personal finance management and cross-border services, as we see these are most successful for clients at global digital champions.
Opens in new window
Deloitte in Belgium
With 5,153 practitioners in 10 offices in Belgium, Deloitte Belgium is the largest organisation in the field of audit and assurance; accountancy, tax and legal advice; strategy, risk and transactions advisory; and technology and transformation services. Our services are aimed at the largest national and international companies as well as at SMEs, the public sector and non-profit organisations. For the financial year 2026, a turnover of €813.5 million was realised.
Deloitte Belgium is a shareholder in Deloitte EMEA BV, which is a member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL), and focuses on the highest quality in delivering professional services and advice.
Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL), its global network of member firms, and their related entities (collectively, the “Deloitte organisation”). DTTL (also referred to as “Deloitte Global”) and each of its member firms and related entities are legally separate and independent entities, which cannot obligate or bind each other in respect of third parties. DTTL and each DTTL member firm and related entity is liable only for its own acts and omissions, and not those of each other. DTTL does not provide services to clients. Please see www.deloitte.com/about to learn more.
Deloitte provides leading professional services to nearly 90% of the Fortune Global 500® and thousands of private companies. Our people deliver measurable and lasting results that help reinforce public trust in capital markets and enable clients to transform and thrive. Building on its 180+-year history, Deloitte spans more than 150 countries and territories. Learn how Deloitte’s nearly 500,000 people worldwide work together every day to make an impact that matters at www.deloitte.com.
Press contact
Isabel Box
Marketing & Communications Manager
Tel: +32 485 31 79 63
ibox@deloitte.com
